Intel has announced plans to fire
1,000 managers in a bid to help the company save $1B USD. A number of
investors were expecting to see as many as 15,000 employees axed worldwide.
While Intel has seen some recent gains in the retail market, AMD has been
surging in sales volume for the past year and Intel's shares have taken a
nearly 30% nose dive since the start of the year.

Intel last thinned the herd in 2002 when it slashed 4,000
jobs. "You should expect that we will continue to take actions, including
selective reductions, as we complete analyses and decisions about investments,
expense levels and organizational structures. Over the last five years at
Intel, the number of managers has grown faster than our overall employee
population. Our efficiency analysis and industry benchmarking have shown that
we have too many management layers, top to bottom, to be effective," said
Otellini in a memo to employees.

Many companies fire lower-level employees before managers, since managers become very adept at CYA....a Management 101 required skill. So this is a very interesting FIRST move by Intel to rapidly streamline their organization. Expect significant lower-level employee layoffs to follow, since the loss of many of these management positions will also mean the closure of complete departments. On average Intel had 8-10 employees reporting to each manager, so expect to see a final layoff/early retirement number of ~ 10,000.